As students from all grade levels cluster together in the B-hallway with merely a pencil and a calculator, Mr. Billingham, calculus and trigonometry teacher at Jesuit, attempts to direct the bulk of students from all grade levels who hope to take the TXML Contest.
The Texas Math League Contest, or TXML contest, is a 6-question mathematics exam distributed every two weeks during the school year. Because the TXML Contest offers a mathematics challenge ranging from geometry, algebra, trigonometry, etc., most math teachers agreed to award extra credit points for every question answered correctly, encouraging nearly three roomfuls of students for every competition.
This year, just as past years at Jesuit, the TXML contest was a way students could demonstrate their skills and aptitude in mathematics, while earning extra credit for their respective math classes.
On Tuesday, February 7th, Jesuit administered the 2017 AMC Math Contest. Like the TXML Contest, the AMC (American Mathematics Competition) is a 75 minute, 25 question contest offered at two levels. The AMC10 was attributed for students currently in 9th or 10th grade, and the AMC12 is for students currently in 11th or 12th grade. The AMC served as a chance to challenge students with captivating mathematical questions from all curriculums of mathematics, for all Jesuit students.
Miles Okamoto ’17, was one of a few Jesuit students who qualified to advance into the American Invitational Mathematics Exam (AIME). The AIME Competition dates are scheduled on Tuesday, March 7, 2017, and Wednesday, March 22, 2017. While the AMC needed an onerous amount of effort to qualify into the AIME, the questions on the AIME are much more difficult than those on the AMC 10 and AMC 12 competitions.
Okamoto describes his experience with the AIME test as “a lot more challenging” since the fact that there were no multiple-choice questions. Because of this, Okamoto says that he “definitely [doesn’t] think [he] did as well on it as the first.”
Putting in perspective how students are assessed based upon their math skills is, according to Mr. Billingham, a reason why the TXML contest and the AMC test were crucial in this year’s mathematics subjects.
Mr. Billingham designates these kind of tests as “a way to put in perspective how good [students] are, and to see that there are challenging problems that, maybe, they can develop an interest in, and rise to.” He ultimately encourages students to develop their skills in the mathematics field, and remarks that these tests “might identify a talent [students] didn’t know they had.”
Be sure to sign up for next year’s TXML and AMC math tests at Jesuit!
